I enjoyed “Angling alone” in the February/March issue. For
years I chartered in the Bahamas and Caribbean and swam
off inflatable dinghies. The flexible ladders supplied are all
but useless for boarding. When you place your feet on the
lower rung, the ladder scoots under the dinghy and you find
yourself leaning backward away from the dinghy. I found the
best way to board is to grab one of the handholds, lie parallel to the water surface, and, using your fins, swim onto the
rounded gunwale. ART ARONSON

Renfrew, PA

.....

I disagree with Michael Vatalaro (“Angling Alone”) when he
writes, “So if there’s a 2-knot current where you’re fishing, …
there’s a pretty good chance that the boat will drift faster than
you can swim.” A man in the water next to the unmoored boat
that he fell from and that boat are under the influence of the
same current and will drift at the same speed.

BOB AUSTIN
Williamsburg, VA

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank you for your comments, and you have
a point. We should have noted that, in addition to tide, windage
will also likely distance your boat from yourself. We hope you won’t
let this oversight obscure the larger message.

Battling condensation

There is no doubt that the points made in the article in the
October/November 2016 issue (“Alert!,” Seaworthy) regarding
the hazards of electric heaters in lieu of winterizing certainly
bear consideration. In the past I’ve had condensation problems

FLIPPING OUT “Our son Stephen does a backflip off thebow of our 64-foot Sunseeker, Manhattan Mistral, at PendrellSound, in British Columbia,” writes Bryan Mistele of Redmond,Washington. “Each year we cruise up to Desolation Sound for amultiweek trip.”in my cabin and in/on my engine. To handle this problem, I’veheard of and seen local watermen leave a 60-watt lightbulb litin the engine compartment. I wanted something a little lessobvious and a little more professional, so I installed a 100-wattblock heater in my engine. It screws into one of the freezeplugs and has a socket for its own 110-volt electric cord.During the season, we remove the cord and store it untilwinter. I still winterize, but the heater keeps the moisture/humidity from collecting in the engine cylinders. In addition,the engine components are always about 140 F and keep thechill and moisture out of the boat.Because I winterized with glycol, a power outage is no con-cern. The power draw is only 100 watts on 30-amp shore powerthrough an AC distribution circuit breaker, an outlet, and a10-foot, 10-amp extension cord. I haven’t had a problem withstuck piston rings or mold since adding this piece to my win-terizing package. I don’t see it as any more dangerous than run-ning one of those little dehumidifiers that contain a small heaterand fan. JOSH MUCKLEYSolomons, MD

EDITOR’S NOTE: While your solution is certainly better than a
bare bulb (or, worse, a heater) in the engine compartment, anything electrical in a gasoline-engine space must be UL-listed as
ignition protected. (This includes timers that might be used with
a block heater.) For a diesel installation, a block heater can be a
good solution to eliminate condensation, though it can’t take the
place of proper winterizing. Also, most block heaters draw 1,000
watts, not 100. If that’s the case, you could be overloading your
shore-power circuit.